Bogus bomb detectors based on the design of a novelty golf ball finder were sold to the Iraqi police by a British businessman, the Old Bailey has heard.

James McCormick made “outlandish claims” about his inventions, maintaining that the devices would react to microscopic traces of explosive from miles away and detect drugs or bodies through walls, water and earth.

But experts tested the equipment and declared that it had no grounding in science, no power supply, no means of transmitting data and no components capable of detecting anything. Tests showed that the machines were no better at finding bombs